


It's All Coming Back To Me

by Poppedthep



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Angst, M/M, Trippy, Very long, also fluff I mean it's me, angst tho, brief homophobic slurs and violence, possibly unhealthy life choices (writing it does not mean I endorse it!), some mild internalized homophobia and racism and religious guilt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-18 01:55:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21503344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poppedthep/pseuds/Poppedthep
Summary: An Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind AU, with some creative license.Yes, that is the title. How dare I.
Relationships: Brooke Lynn Hytes/Vanessa Vanjie Mateo
Comments: 34
Kudos: 29





	It's All Coming Back To Me

**Author's Note:**

> This is an [Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBEke6JixyE)AU. Makes more sense if you’ve seen the movie. It's also great! 
> 
> I do things differently than the movie (more Pensieve-style and they're doing it together are the main things). Mostly for story purposes but also because I said so. Go ahead and suspend your disbelief for everything, not least being able to do this as a famous person. Apologies in advance if having two versions of them in most of it is confusing.
> 
> This story has gotten unwieldy and not as poignant as I would have liked but hope you find some things to enjoy about it! Beware, it's long. Pace yourself, stay hydrated. At one point it was all gonna be one chapter so I have at least saved you that. 
> 
> These are all fictional characters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I know I famously always post everything at once but I foolishly started editing this on Ao3 to motivate me and because of their draft rules if I don't post by today it'll all be deleted! 
> 
> So here is as much as I have done to avoid losing it all and I promise I'll try my best to finish the rest when I have some time. If I do ever get it done I think it's gonna be really long (the draft is currently around 50k) and I don't have a lot of time for fic writing right now so bear with me! 
> 
> Sorry to be a tease I know waiting for things is the worst and I'll try not to take too long and to actually do it at some point but no promises! Feel free to wait until I post the rest to start reading if you don't wanna get annoyed with me. At least I'm kinda writing something again! Even though I shouldn't be! Merry Christmas!

“We really both have to do this together?” Brock looks around the dim waiting room, suspicion and nerves in the tight set of his shoulders.

“Yes, bitch. I told you. Gotta be together for their brain juju to work. You think I’m lying to you?”

“No, I don’t think you’re--”

“What? Just to get you to come to some nasty ass home office with a bunch a freakshows so I can what--?” Jose cuts in like what Brock’s saying doesn’t even matter.

“Can you let me finish a--”

“--I ain’t tryna fuck you bitch. We way past that. This ain’t no twilight zone booty call.”

He may as well be talking to the wall for all Jose is listening, or letting him speak.

“I didn’t think it was. I just meant it's kind of an extreme--”

“You said it. Extreme measures required, bitch. We gotta move on from this shit.”

“We _have_ ,” Brock says automatically, a little uncertain.

He has. He’s pretty sure of it.

Unless you count wanting to smother him with frustration, he doesn’t feel much towards Jose these days beyond a distant fondness and amused-ness.

Sure there’s the inevitable way he makes everything brighter, the slight pang of longing right after seeing him when he won't see him again for a while. But everyone gets that from Vanjie. Brock doesn’t feel it more than anyone else.

Unless he’s being extra especially cute.

Even then it’s no more than a shadow of what it used to be.

Sure he thinks about him briefly if he hears a song about first love, that fizzy irrational sparkling feeling, or one of the songs Jose used to strip and dance for him to. But that's completely normal.

Sure occasionally he'll want to tell him when something funny happens, because he laughs at almost all the same things as Brock. But if it's really funny he texts him anyway. And usually he replies. Even if he doesn't send Brock random funny things like he used to much anymore.

Jose’s leg is jiggling so much he’s shaking the bench they’re sat on. Jose glares at him as though Brock is accusing him of still having feelings.

Even though he’s the one who asked Brock to do this with him.

“Look, you wanna get your lil jush with Doctor Dolittle, both a you fuckin other bitches left and right like dodgems, I’m sure it's real cute baby.”

“What are you _talking about_? You know I don’t do that.”

“Right right, she all talk. You know I’m only playin'. We cool, we kiki, we good supportive sisters now. All that shit. You found a ho who don’t mind all the flirtin and the radio silence, the thottin and boppin, good for you baby, you know, I’ll start the damn parade myself, bitch,” he says with too much aggression to be believable.

“We just gotta let ‘em poke around, get the shit out, then ain’t nobody gotta be obsessing over nobody no more. I can go get my life, open myself up. And I know where your nasty ho mind go but I mean to new things, bitch, and the universe will provide. Find me a real deal ride or die type a ho who wanna text me back all the shits and giggles. And y’all can go off suckin dicks and kissin lizards together, or whatever the fuck he do, and we ain’t never gotta think bout none of our emo ass shit again. ‘Kay?”

“Okay,” Brock feels a little guilty for snorting with laughter when Jose called Seth Doctor Dolittle. And even more when he said kissing lizards. He has definitely seen Seth kiss a lizard.

It was a mistake to laugh because Jose loves making him laugh, even when it's not such a satisfying target for him. His eyes light up and Brock knows he won't stop chasing more laughter out of him.

"That _your_ Noah, bitch. All up in his ark with the animals. I ain't sayin I seen the bitch makin' out with a parrot, cuz you know I ain't about to admit to no stalkery activity. All I'm _sayin_ is when you done kissin' the bitch you might wanna check your teeth for bird feed, Mary."

Brock laughs so hard he's shaking the whole bench, hand over his nose, trying to muffle it. Jose looks annoyingly pleased.

"Now you know I don't give a fuck, I don't follow the bitch. But baby that ho got more plants than furniture. You gon' needa get your shots just to stay over in the jungle huh, Mary?"

"Okay, very funny," Brock bites on the inside of his cheek to try to stop laughing because Jose is getting louder.

"Tell him to watch out for sneaky snakes in certain places!" he cackles.

"What--?"

"The bitch always naked. I ain't lookin, you know I ain't interested, but I ain't never seen him in a full set a clothing, Mary. I ain't convinced he own none. Ho recognize ho, I guess."

Brock snorts more, very undignified, glad Jose is the only witness. 

"Nothing like easy access," he jokes back, having so much fun he forgets who he's joking with.

"Right. She like 'em easy," Jose smiles tightly and doesn't make any more jokes.

The lightness dancing in Brock from a Jose-induced ugly laugh plummets with the dropped conversation.

"Bird feed huh?" He tries to pick it back up, raising an eyebrow teasingly. "You kiss Riley."

He wants to nudge him but isn't sure how he'd react.

It's ridiculous that they've gotten to the point that he's second guessing a friendly nudge. Kind of sad. Doing something about it is long overdue, really.

"So? That's a different situation," Jose isn't quite smiling but his eyes light back up.

"Why?" Brock asks, smiling slowly.

"Because Riley my baby," Jose sniffs decisively, looking kind of like a puppy himself.

"Right," Brock is unable to hide how amused he is by him.

Jose’s leg is still jiggling. 

“This ain’t about you or nothing Miss Thing," he bursts out, from whatever train of thought he's wrestling with behind his darting eyes. "Don’t be gettin' all smug. I ain’t writing 'Vanjilina Hytes' in bathroom stalls or nothing, bitch.”

Brock snorts again. 

Jose is frowning, defensive, as though Brock is judging him, when Brock is really, really not.

He’s just trying to be a good ex. A good friend. Trying to show up for him when Jose needs him.

"I been seeing bitches too. Gettin me all kindsa dancer trade."

"Go off sis. I saw you looking very trade on your story. Come through facial hair," Brock jokes softly around the weird feeling he gets when they talk about this stuff. He's very intentional in calling him sis, to make it clear where his head is at, even though he's complimenting.

"Damn right. Got the boys linin' up to get a lil piece. You know I love me a man who can dance. They comin for your gig Twinkle Toes."

"That's great," Brock smiles reflexively. He doesn't really keep track but he didn't know Jose was seeing anyone. He's not sure how he feels about Jose calling some other bitch twinkle toes. He's still relatively new to the whole dating thing, the having an ex thing, but he thought that was _theirs_. He hopes he's just saying that to fuck with him.

He probably is.

Right now he's picking at the wood grain of the bench they're on, staring at the floor.

“I'm good. Real good. It ain't about you. Just-- you know how I get, all obsessive over shit I ain’t mean to and-- It’a just be better this way.”

“I know,” Brock tries to sound calming.

He puts a hand on Jose’s knee to stop his leg jiggling, but the touch makes him flinch away.

Only a little, but enough that Brock notices and feels sad about it.

“Mr Cancel and ex partner?” a head pops out of the door in front of them, looking worryingly young to have any involvement with a medical procedure on their brains, but the body attached to it is in a lab coat.

“We’re ready for you.”

///

The tween in the lab coat puts slimy gel on Brock’s temples and attaches pads that connect to wires that go into a big helmet looming over his head on the pillow that connects to their--whatever it is.

The machine that will find and erase every trace of Jose from his memories and Brock from Jose’s.

It’ll be like they’ve never met.

The notices have been sent out to all their friends and family, their management, the press, other queens and venues and promoters, broadcast publically on their social media. Everyone knows not to mention their history with each other ever again from tonight onwards. That mentioning them to each other could be very dangerous to their mental stability.

A blonde in a lab coat hands Brock a paper cup with some blue liquid in the bottom.

“Drink up,” she says, mildly disinterested.

Brock drinks it down in one and immediately feels himself getting sleepy.

He looks over at Jose wired up on the bed next to him, eyeing his paper cup dubiously.

"Cheers, bitch," he tilts his empty cup at Jose.

Jose lifts his cup to Brock, sighs bodily, and looks away as he drinks it.

Brock should have remembered to cheers _before_ drinking his. It's bad luck to do it after you've taken a sip.

His brain gets a little stuck on that, gets a little panicky. Or maybe it's the wires. Or the heavy feeling spreading quickly through his limbs.

He looks back at Jose on the bed next to his in the standard issue pyjamas they changed into. They're a little small on Brock and very big on him. Together with all the wires, they make him look tiny and uncharacteristically vulnerable on the bed.

Brock feels a sharp twinge in a place he thought had healed over.

When Jose feels him looking again and meets his eyes, for a moment they're steady and hold him in their warmth and Brock feels his panic ebb a little.

Then he blinks sleepily and Brock sees panic, maybe regret, flash across his expression before he slumps slack, asleep.

Brock is much bigger but they must have given him more because seconds later, just as he's really starting to panic himself, starting to wonder why the fuck they're voluntarily roofie-ing themselves-- or doing this at all-- he feels sleep dragging him under too.


End file.
